In 2001, with reality
tv shows like Survivor and Big Brother gaining in popularity,
a British man named Nikita Russian (born Keith Anthony Gillard) had gotten the
idea to produce a show where contestants would live together, and - in groups
- would try to amass £1 million through different business challenges,
for what Russian called "Project MS-2".

Placing ads in
papers such as London Evening Standard, Russian had an open call for
"characterful, resourceful and energetic" people to apply for the
chance to win £100,000 on a show produced by his Nikita Russian Productions
(NRP). After receiving thousands of e-mails, he interviewed close to a hundred
people willing to take part. Once auditions were over, he selected 30 applicants
for his new show, which was to last one year. Those picked were given contracts
to sign, which stated they would be provided food, accommodation and a little
spending money. Many, seeing how long the filming would take, gave up their
jobs, and even left their homes.
Separated into three groups of ten, the contestants were only told of the show's
consequences and conclusion upon the first day of filming (June 10, 2002). Their
1st task for the show: find a place to live. After a few days of having trouble,
and even having to buy their own food, many participants asked to speak to Nikita.
Upon speaking to him, they learned that the tv show hadn't actually been picked
up by anyone, and even the cameramen were unpaid trainees. This caused Teams
1 and 3 to disband, and leave production. Team 2 stuck it out, and slept on
the floor of one of the cameraman's apartment.
By June, most of those still in had become disillusioned, and went off to find
new work, as well as move back home. Upon further investigation, one candidate,
Louise Miles, found that Russian's production company, NRP, wasn't even real,
and the person answering the phones was Russian's mother. This caused challenger
Debbie Leigh Driver to contact the production company Christmas TV & Film,
and told them how all entrants had been duped. Caz Gorham and Frances Dickenson
from CT&F proceeded to document the con, and it was aired on BBC Channel
4 in December of 2002.
Becoming known as the Great Reality TV Swindle, many felt the fault lay with
Nikita Russian, but just as many thought the contestants were to blame, as they
were gullible, and their desire for fame had blinded them.
It's quite ironic how a buffoon's appetite for stardom can put them on television,
but not always in the way they'd like to be.

-- February
28, 2018 --

The Little Town
That Wasn't, Then Was, Then Was No More

How does a company
that makes maps know if other companies aren't just copying theirs, and passing
them off as their own?
That's were a little extra ink comes into play, and that company creates what
is known as a "paper town" (or "fictitious entry"), which
is itself one version of a "copyright trap". Said company places a
fake town somewhere on the map, and if that town is spotted on other maps, they
know theirs has been duplicated.
One such town is Agloe, NY.

In the 1930s, the
Convent Station, NJ, company General Drafting Corporation placed a town on their
maps called Agloe (an amalgam of founder Otto G. Lindberg, and assistant Ernest
Alpers' initials). Just north of Roscoe, NY, the faux town was placed on a dirt
road in the Catskill Mountains, where State Road 206, and Morton Hill Road intersected.
In 1950, a general store opened in that intersection, and - based on a map made
by General Drafting - they named it Agloe General Store, so the town became
somewhat of a real place. Soon enough, the town was listed as a hamlet by the
Delaware County administration, so Agloe then appeared on a Rand McNally map.
The original map makers tried to sue RM for copyright infringement, but it was
thrown out seeing as it had become a real place. By 1970, the store had closed
shop, yet the town still appeared on maps as late as 1990, but with no population
or established township it was ultimately deleted from newer maps.
Even so, Google Maps listed the town for a while, but removed it in 2014, which
proves you can't believe everything you find on the internet.

-- February
16, 2018 --

Let It Be Known

My
new fanzine, titled Musica Obscura, is out in a limited edition of 100
signed, and numbered, copies.

It
collects over 15 different in depth articles on bizarre and rare music from
around the world. Topics include the hatred against the early punk scene, the
co-optation of underground ideas, postmodernist thought in contemporary music,
plus brief histories to the Luk Thung music of Thailand, Cambodia's 60s
scene, the transgendered in music, and sex records. It also comes with a free
disc of 130+ mp3s, so you can listen as you read.
$6 with postage paid. Make contact
for copies.

-- February
02, 2018 --

Bringing Down the
Hammer

In 2005, a Boston,
MA group claiming to be a branch of Fred Phelp's hateful Westboro Baptist Church
opened a Yahoo Group "GodHatesGoths". Calling themselves The Church
of the Hammer (after the 1480 anti-witchcraft treatise Malleus Maleficarum,
which translates as "the Hammer of Witches"), they were led by a Reverend
Green, and soon had a web presence with the URL godhatesgoths.com. Their message
was simple, and laid out in their 16 point plan:

Kill people who
don't listen to priests.
Kill witches.
Kill homosexuals.
Kill fortune tellers.
Death for hitting dad.
Death for cursing parents.
Death for adultery.
Death for fornication.
Death to followers of other religions.
Kill nonbelievers.
Kill false prophets.
Kill the entire town if one person worships another god.
Kill women who are not virgins on their wedding night.
Death for blasphemy.
Infidels and gays should die.
Kill people for working on the Sabbath.

This list set off
alarms in the FBI that year, and agents were sent to investigate.

Though their website
openly admitted many acts of terrorism (such as a night club arson, and poisoning
an entire group shelter in the group's original home state of Colorado), law
enforcement had trouble tracking down members. This shadowy group, who also
went under the names Parents Against Goth Movement, and God's Hammer Baptist
Church, was hard to trace. Even the nefarious Reverend Green was impossible
to find, as records for the assault charges he bragged of were nonexistent.
It almost seemed like the whole thing could have been one big joke.
Sometime in 2006, one of the agents decided to read the church's entire website,
and found a disclaimer in the "About Us" page, stating it was all
satire. The Bureau could take no chances, and kept working hard on the case,
but a full two years after opening files on The Church of the Hammer (July,
2007), they shut down the operation, admitting they'd been had.

I wonder how much
of our tax dollars went into this embarrassing operation?

-- January 18,
2018 --

Some Call Him the
Space Cowboy

When Norman Odam
was growing up in Lubbock, TX, he used to look up at the stars, and dream. Later
in life, knowing he may never make it off this planet, he pulled out Plan 2:
reach for stardom. While in college, he got the idea to write "a wild song
that would captivate everybody". In 1968, he entered a recording studio
in Fort Worth, and went to work on two tracks that helped pioneer the sound
of psychobilly. Releasing 500 copies of a single under his new moniker, The
Legendary Stardust Cowboy, on his own label, Psycho-Suave Records, the A-side
was titled "Paralyzed", and was thought to be pretty intense, which
got him picked up by Mercury Records.

The Mercury Records'
push got him a spot onto the Billboard Top 200, as well as on NBC's Rowan
and Martin's Laugh-In (where he ran off in mid-song when he thought the
cast members were making fun of him).
Not long after, a copy of the original 7" wound up in the hands of NASA's
John Kevin Watson of Houston Mission Control. He thought "Paralyzed"
would be a great song to help the space crew get up and go. The ground crew
loved it, and set it up for the next morning's play. Once the tune began, the
astronauts jumped out of bed startled, and their performance was terrible throughout
the day. This led to NASA "banning" the song from their rotation,
and it is never to be played again for any mission. So check out the track that
is no longer allowed in space...

Today, he is remembered
fondly as a great outsider artist, and David Bowie even covered LSC's "I
Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship" on his 2002 Heathen LP. In 2011,
"The Ledge" - as he is called by fans - release a retrospective double
CD of his work, titled For Sarah, Raquel, and David: An Anthology, on
Cherry Red Records, and if you're looking for a spaced-out wild time, he still
plays out whenever he can.

-- January 04,
2018 --

Draining the Swamp
Sea

In 1920, German
architect Herman Sörgel (1885 -1952), had developed an idea to create huge
amounts of cheap electricity for the entire continent of Europe, as well as
create thousands of square miles of new land for development throughout the
whole Mediterranean region. The project was called Atlantropa (also Panropa),
and consisted of building five giant hydroelectric dams.
The first, and most important would be across the Strait of Gibraltar, separating
the Atlantic Ocean from the Mediterranean Sea. The following four were to be
placed across the Dardanelles Strait (holding back the Black Sea), between Sicily
and Tunisia (which would also provide a road through the Mediterranean Sea),
on the Congo River (providing irrigation to the Sahara Desert), and along the
Suez Canal (to maintain the Red Sea). All of this would have caused the Mediterranean
Sea to drop by 200 meters (660 ft), creating new land for development opportunities.

The Nazi Party
loved the idea, and it became one of many reasons to conquer new lands, especially
in Africa. It was to take close to 100 years for the completion of the project,
so it was also seen as a way to create a Pan-European and African cooperation
and (somehow) pacifism. After WWII, the Allies picked up the idea, thinking
it would help create stronger ties with Africa, and help fight Communism.
Though many believed the scheme would have caused havoc on the climate, along
with earthquakes, the propaganda produced by the architect's Atlantropa Institute
spun those disasters in a positive light (such as Britain would get warmer winters
due to a stronger Gulf Stream). Luckily for the planet, the idea died along
with Sörgel, in 1952, as no one else pushed the idea as strongly as he
did. Knowing what we do now, about how the rotation of the Earth was affected
by China's Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, it is deemed that we're all
better off for not trying it out anyway.

-- December
21, 2017 --

Rave Your Way To
Sleep

Stressed? Anxious?
Having trouble falling asleep? A Manchester, UK ambient music trio called Marconi
Union may be able to help.
In October of 2011, the band worked with the British Academy of Sound Therapy,
to produce an eight-minute single, titled "Weightless". The track
is set at 60 beats-per-minute, which is said to synchronize your heartbeat to
your brain's alpha waves. The song is eight minutes long, as it takes about
five minutes for this process to begin. The harmonic intervals were set in such
as way as to cause feelings of euphoria. Also, there are no repeating melodies,
and this will allow the brain to switch off, since it's not trying to predict
what's upcoming. High tones, which stimulate, went unused; while the music consists
of many low tones that help induce trance states.
Have a listen (but not while operating heavy machinery)...

Later that year,
Time Magazine included Marconi Union into their "Inventors of the
Year" list for producing the track, though the song didn't hit the Billboard
charts until 2017, when a few more articles where released about the music's
creation.
If you want more to listen to, Marconi Union released a thirty-minute version
of "Weightless", plus other tracks deemed as some of the world's most
relaxing music include: Enya's "Watermark", "Pure Shores"
by All Saints, "Strawberry Swing" from Coldpaly, and Mozart's "Canzonetta
Sull'aria"
Nite, nite.

-- December
11, 2017 --

Pissing Off the
Pope

Rarely has a drug
ever been blessed by the head of the Catholic Church, but one in specific had
the pontiff's people working overtime.
In 1946, chemical engineer, Piero Donini, while working for the Italian pharmaceutical
company Serono Pharmacological Institute, was the first to purify and extract
two urinary gonadotropins which stimulated ovulation (the hormones FSH and LH),
speculating this could be used to treat infertility. Soon, he discovered that
the highest levels of the hormones were produced in post-menopausal women, as
the chemicals stimulate egg production, and women's bodies will produce much
more after the ovaries stop this process.
Donini Pergonal called his new drug Pergonal, after the Italian phrase "per
gonadi" (meaning: from the gonads), but didn't have the means to produce
a large enough quantity to run tests. The drug was shelved for a little over
ten years, until a Vienna medical student, Bruno Lunenfeld, was studying the
effect of human hormones in fertility, and stumbled upon Piero's work. After
contacting Serono executives, he convinced them to begin trials of the drug,
but came upon a huge stumbling block. Seeing as it took a dozen women a dozen
days to produce a little over one treatment, how would he get enough urine from
menopausal females to continue experiments?
In steps Italian aristocrat, and Serono executive, Giulio Pacelli, who happens
to have been the nephew of Pope Pius XII. Pacelli asked his uncle for help,
and the idea came to use nuns in Vatican-run retirement homes. In no time, the
golden showers rained down enough to fill tanker trucks. For years, the holy
pee flowed from homes across Italy, and into Serono's headquarters in Rome.

In 1962, the first
child (a girl) was born to a woman treated with Pergonal, by Lunenfeld, in Tel
Aviv, Israel. Another twenty children were born in the following two years,
but - by the 1980s - 8000 gallons (30,000 liters) a day was needed to keep up
production. Finally, the good nun's bladders could rest in 1995, as a synthesized
hormone, Gonal-F, was approved.
Though I'm sure this story has been a huge splash to my regular readers, it
might seem like a bit of yellow journalism to many outsiders. Even so, I'm glad
I leaked it here.

-- November
27, 2017 --

Donkey Goes Boom

I hate animal cruelty,
but some acts are bafflingly bizarre.
As reported in a September 1881 issue of Scientific American, General
Henry L. Abbot of the Engineer School of Application in Willet's Point, NY,
decided to use an old mule giving him trouble in a photographic experiment.
The exercise was to showcase the "remarkable sensitiveness" of the
era's photo-gelatin plates, as well as the fact that cameras could take instantaneous
photos (over setting them up to expose a scene for minutes at a time).
In June of that same year, Van Sothen, a photographer from the U.S. School of
Submarine Engineers, rigged an electric trigger to, both, a camera, and a packet
of dynamite attached to the donkey's head. Upon flipping the switch, this odd
image was forever cataloged into the world of early photography.

click on image for
larger view

-- November
15, 2017 --

Back To Hitting
the Books

I love a good (read:
weird) literary story, and this is another one that deserves to be posted of.
In 1966, Newsday columnist Mike McGrady believed any book with enough
sex would hit the bestseller lists, and therefore the lists of his day were
populated with basic garbage. To prove it, he recruited fellow Newsday
writer Harvey Aronson, 1965 Pulitzer Prize winner Gene Goltz, journalist Marilyn
Berge, and Robert W. Greene (who would later win a Pulitzer in 1970), to write
the crappiest, most sex-filled novel they could.
Each author wrote a different chapter, filling it with the most inane dialog,
scenes that made no sense, and - of course - packed it with tons of sexually
explicit material. The book, titled Naked Came the Stranger, and credited
to the nonexistent Penelope Ashe, was about two hosts of a NYC morning radio
show, The Billy & Gilly Show, who thought themselves to be a perfect
couple. The wife then finds her husband having an affair, and decides to have
flings of her own, which include rabbis and mobsters.

Published in 1969,
on Lyle Stuart, Inc. (who in the 90s became Barricade Books, infamous for reprinting
the racist The Turner Diaries), the book quickly sold 20,000 copies.
The authors soon appeared on TV's The David Frost Show, to expose the
hoax, which helped the sale of another 70,000 - placing the book on The New
York Times' Best-Seller List for 13 weeks. As expected, the book was made
into a porno film in 1975, and, as of today, the novel has sold half a million
units.
The following year, McGrady released Stranger Than Naked, or How to Write
Dirty Books for Fun and Profit, which told the story of the creation of
Naked Came the Stranger, which goes to show that even with the wool pulled
over some people's eyes, they can still smell out sex when they want it.

-- November
01, 2017 --

When Lightning
Strikes

Recently, I've
passed some of the most interesting spots in the United States, yet rarely gotten
to stop, and visit. Sometimes, luck is on my side, and I've pulled over to enjoy
what I normally have been flying by.
One such case was when I stopped at Nevada's Thunder Mountain Monument.
In the late-1960s, WWII
veteran Frank Van Zant took LSD one day, and suddenly believed himself to be
a Native American. In 1969, he changed his name to Rolling Mountain Thunder,
and began to construct bizarre monuments in the small town of Imlay, which were
to supposed to be shelters for American Indians in the upcoming apocalypse,
calling it Thunder Mountain. Off the side of I-80, be built a number of buildings
(using rocks, cement and discarded junk), as well as over 200 statues. The site
became home to hundreds of hippies throughout the 70s. In 1983, Nevada made
Frank their "Artist of the Year", but soon someone tried to burn down
Thunder Mountain, and destroyed a bit of it.
Sadly, in 1989, he put a gun to his head, and ended his career as an outsider
artist. The buildings sat derelict, until the state made it a historic site
in 1992.

I think there is
something terribly wrong with those who commit acts of art vandalism. Sure,
there are a few people who've fucked up works by mistake, like the kid who tripped,
and put his fist through Paolo Porpora's Flowers (a 17th Century painting,
priced at $1.5 million). There are also ones who have done it purposefully,
and without merit, such as the constant attacks on Leonardo da Vinci's Mona
Lisa (an acid splash in 1956, as well as a rock thrown a few months later,
plus red spray paint in 1974, and a souvenir mug thrown in 2009). A few executions
are supposedly legitimate, such as artist Ai Weiwei dropping a million dollar
Han Dynasty vase to protest China's human rights violations. There are so many
deeds of art vandalism, Wikipedia has an entire page listing most of them (see
here).
One of the odder ones would have to be the case of Russian-born art blogger
Wlodzimierz Umaniec, who walked into London's Tate Modern in October of 2012,
and vandalized Mark Rothko's 1958 piece, Black on Maroon. After stepping
over the roped barrier, Umaniec proceeded to write on the Rothko's work, with
a type of homemade black marker popular with graffiti artists, "A Potential
Piece of Yellowism," then signing it with his tag-name, "Vladimir
Umanets". It is believed Wlodzimierz performed the vandal operation to
further his art career, and gain press for his art movement known as "Yellowism".

On his blog, he
writes, "Yellowism is not art, and Yellowism isn't anti-art," explaining
in an interview, "The main difference between Yellowism, and art, is that
in art you have got freedom of interpretation, in Yellowism you don't have freedom
of interpretation, everything is about Yellowism." Confused? No matter,
because the action garnered the self-proclaimed artist two years in jail, not
to mention several more years of scorn from art lovers.
Well, it's good to know that for most of these works of iconoclastic destruction,
there is retribution. While this artist was put behind bars, in the case of
the previously mentioned vase-dropping, an angry citizen, Maximo Caminero, walked
into an Ai Weiwei retrospective in Miami, and smashed one of the artist's 16
vases on display. So, if you're looking for way to become famous, try creating
something instead.

-- October 05,
2017 --

False Narratives

Keeping up with
my posts on books, I'd thought to share this odd slice of literary history.
In 1955, Jean 'Shep' Shepherd, best known for his hilarious 1983 movie A
Christmas Story, was hosting an AM radio show on New York City's WOR. He
was peeved at how most books had gotten listed in many bestseller lists, which
consisted, not only on sales, but also on requests at book sellers. To help
change the process, he asked his listeners to go to book stores, and ask for
a nonexistent book and author, I, Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing, even
going so far as to set up a plot, and claiming it was banned in Boston. Fans
of the show did so, with a few actually referencing it in articles of smaller
newspapers. The fake book had gotten so much demand, it made in onto The
New York Times' Best Seller list.
Later, Shepherd, along with publisher Ian Ballantine, and novelist Theodore
Sturgeon, decided to actually write the novel. Sturgeon typed all day long,
and when he passed out from the day's work without finishing it, Ian's wife,
editor Betty Ballantine, finished the last chapter for him. The book, with a
cover by science fiction and fantasy artist Frank Kelly Freas, was released
by Ballantine Books in September of 1956, even though The Wall Street Journal
had exposed the hoax a few weeks before. Not wanting to fleece folks, the profits
from the sale of the book were donated to charity.

-- September
18, 2017 --

Lost In Translation,
Literally

In 1855, Portuguese
writer Pedro Carolino thought to help many of his countrymen learn the English
language by translating an 1853 PortugueseFrench phrase book, O novo
guia da conversação em francês e português, written
by José da Fonseca. The only problem was that Carolino didn't speak a
word of English himself. He thought to fix that by using a French-English dictionary,
and got to work translating the phrase book word by word.

The result, O
novo guia da conversação em portuguez e inglez, became one
of the earliest known examples of unintentional humor, as phrases such as "Quem
cala consente" (Silence is consent") became "That not says a
word, consent", and "Anda de gatinhas" ("He's crawling")
were turned into "He go to four feet".
In 1883, a Boston publishing house reprinted the book, under the title English
As She Is Spoke, and included an introduction by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens),
who wrote, "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate
it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect."
The original helped spawn many other works of comedy, including L'Anglais
tel qu'on le parle (French Without a Master), by playwright Tristan
Bernard (Paul Bernard), and Eugène Ionesco's La Cantatrice Chauve
(The Bald Soprano), which both use lines from the book, as well as Ingglish
az she iz spelt in 1885, by Fritz Federheld (Frederick Atherton Fernald),
and Paul Jennings' 1976 British travel guide Britain as she is visit.
You can read an abridged version of this slice of hilarity here,
or - if you're lucky - check eBay for an original.

-- September
07, 2017 --

Can Milk Make Grapes
Sour?

Sometimes, it's
better to just ignore a troublemaker. A lot of the time, if you take one on,
you're just making bigger trouble for yourself.
Though mothers had known this for ages, the issue of breast-milk substitutes
causing health risks for newborns was publicly brought to light by the International
Baby Food Action Network, who encouraged the practice of nutrition through natural
methods, and inspired a 1973 article in New Internationalist magazine.
In 1974, a British antipoverty charity, called War On Want, released a small
booklet, titled The Baby Killer. The pamphlet attacked the Swiss food
company Nestlé, and what WOW claimed was their "aggressive marketing"
of breast milk substitutes in third-word countries.

Instead of letting
a handful of malcontents talk shit about them, and having the headache go away
in time, Nestlé decided to sue the group for libel. The case was brought
before Judge Jürg Sollberger, who only sided with Nestlé because
the company couldn't be held responsible for the death of infants "in terms
of criminal law", and fined the fund a mere 300 Swiss Francs (about $400
US).
This caused a bit of a stir with the media, and the story began to gain traction.
The boycott was soon picked up by Minneapolis, MN's Infant Formula Action Coalition,
which helped spread the word in Canada, then Australia, and the rest of Europe.
By 1978, the US Senate held a public hearing looking into the promotion of breast-milk
substitutes, and wound up calling for a marketing code. The following year,
the World Health Organization and UNICEF pushed for a marketing code in an international
meeting, and the 34th World Health Assembly approved Resolution WHA34.22 which
includes the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes in 1981.
In 1984, Nestlé finally gave in, and proved that there are times when
the bigger guy should just take getting picked on by smaller folk.
If you'd like to read the now-infamous tract, The Baby Killer, click
here.

-- August 21,
2017 --

Light Up the Sky

Since everyone
is on an astronomy kick because of the solar eclipse, I'd thought I'd tell you
about another great event that'll happen in our lifetime (supposing you don't
die in the next five years).
In 2022, a "new star" will not only be visible, but possibly be one
of the brightest stars in the night sky. Well, for at least six months, anyway.

Back in our 3rd
Century, 1800 years ago, two stars in the Cygnus constellation (a binary system
named KIC9832227) crashed into one another forming a Red Nova. The light from
the two stars joining will reach us soon, and has been dubbed the Boom Star.
First discovered in 2013 by Professor Larry Molnar of Calvin College, who, using
data dating back to 1999, noticed the orbital speed of the system decreasing
as time went on. Though these types of explosions occur once every ten years
in our galaxy, this one is close enough for us to see it with the naked eye.
According to the work presented at the 2016 American Astronomy Association meeting
in Texas, it should be one of the most visible stars for a minimum of six months.
The UK's Royal Astronomical Society's Dr. Robert Massey said, "Nobody has
ever managed to predict the birth of a star before, so this is really unprecedented,
and I think there will be a race among amateur astronomers, and members of the
public to spot it first."

-- August 11,
2017 --

When Bones Tell
A Tale

Abel Folgar, over
at Miami New Times, asked me a few questions concerning my recent 10"
release for an online feature.

I'm a huge animal
lover, and this is one of those stories that really got to me.
I understand depression, and that many can't control their actions when they
suffer from it, but sometimes those actions boggle even my mind. Take the case
of Terry Thompson. Terry was a veteran of the Vietnam War, but - more importantly
- one of Ohio's best known exotic animal collectors. In 2008, he appeared on
The Rachael Ray Show, and also supplied animals for photo shoots, but,
in 2010, Thompson was arrested on federal gun charges, and was sent to prison.
Soon, he was in debt, and then his wife had left him. Afterward, he decided
to cut this mortal coil.

On October 18th
of 2011, Terry decided to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head, but,
before doing so, he set free all the animals at his Zanesville, OH private zoo,
Muskingum County Animal Farm. He released 56 animals, including eighteen tigers,
seventeen lions, eight bears, three cougars, two wolves, and a baboon. A neighbor,
Sam Kopchak, noticed his horse freaking out, and then a lion creeping up to
it. He ran for a phone, and called Terry to let him know one of his animals
was loose. After no answer, he dialed 911, and the police visited Thompson's
property, only to find all the cages empty. Springing into action, the cops
put out warnings for the locals, and went on the hunt. 49 of those beautiful
creatures were shot, and killed. Of those not gunned down by the pigs: one wolf
was hit by a car, and six others (three leopards, a grizzly and two monkeys)
made their way into Terry's home, where they were tranquilized, and later brought
to the Columbus Zoo.

In the days after,
Ohio governor, John Kasich, signed a temporary moratorium on the sale of exotic
animals, and it is now illegal to own one in that state.
As I normally state after posts like these: if you ever find yourself in desperate
times, and are in need of someone to talk to, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

-- July 11,
2017 --

The World's Most
Dangerous Book

In 1874, S. George
& Company released a book by a doctor from Michigan, Robert Clark Kedzie,
titled Shadows from the Walls of Death.

Upon returning
to Michigan from his service in the Civil War in 1863, he was offered a chair
in the Michigan Agricultural College's chemistry department. There he he experimented
with beet sugars, and is now remembered as the "Father of the Michigan
Beet Sugar Industry". During his tenure, he found high arsenic levels to
be a major issue in the local soil, and was later (1873) asked to head a Board
of Health committee on "Poisons, Special Sources of Danger to Life and
Health". The following year he released a paper titled, "Poisonous
Papers", and got the idea to release a book on the wallpaper industry's
use of arsenic.
His book, Shadows from the Walls of Death, contained 86 pages, but only
six of those - a preface - contained words. What followed Dr. Kedzie's introduction
were 22 x 30" (56 x 76 cm) wallpaper samples. The reason for the book,
which was released in a very limited quantity, was to showcase the ever-growing
use of wallpaper dyed using arsenic pigments, and it contained actual pieces
of the poisonous wallpapers.
Currently, there are only two known copies, both of which are housed at Michigan
State University's Special Collections Library. Strangely enough, contemporary
interest in the book spawned a 178-page reprint (minus the arsenic, of course),
in 2014.

-- July 07,
2017 --

Huge Apologies

I was struggling
for a bit to find the time to update this blog, and that kind of depressed me.
Well, I've settled in, and feel I can now devote some energy back here. You'll
start seeing new posts before next month.On a side
note, I am no longer writing for No Echo, but you can still find an archive
of over 30 of my articles on the site (click
here).
Check back soon for new posts!